The Jupiter Plague

The expressway rose up here on giant pillars in order to span the complex traffic junction where the Long Island, city and airport traffic met. From the summit of this arching bridge they could see across the width of the airport, over the low, widespread buildings and hangars. A new structure had been added to this scene, a dark bulk that rose high up, five times higher than the control tower, a rounded and scarred mass of metal as wide as a city block. There was a haze of smoke across the scene — then everything vanished as they swooped down from the bridge.

“Could you see where it was?” Nita asked.

“Not clearly — but it was away from the passenger depot, I’m sure of that.”

Policemen — and military policemen — waved them on, guiding them through the maze of access roads and into a gate that led directly onto the field itself. A policeman held his hand up for them to stop, then threw the driver’s door open.

“You got the medical boxes from Bellevue?”

“Yeah, in back,” Killer jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“They want them, over by the SAS hangar, I’ll show you where.” The cop pushed in next to Killer and held onto the open door. There was grease on his face and his uniform was wrinkled and dusty. “That’s it, where the other ambulance is, you can stop behind it. What a goddamn mess. That blowtorch came straight down, cooked a D-95 taking off, blew another one out of the air, landed right on a fuel truck. It’s not sorted out yet. I never seen bodies like this…”

The policeman jumped out when they stopped‘ and called to some nearby mechanics to unload the medical boxes. Sam started to help Nita down, when a haggard-looking police captain appeared.

“Are you doctors?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Where do they need us?”

“Out at the end of the runway. They’ve been trying to stop all the incoming flights and are diverting them to Newark. But nothing’s working right. Just had a report of a sighting out there, maybe another crash. I’ll show you where.”

Killer burnt rubber in the direction indicated. They twisted their way through the parked planes.ind out onto a service road. Then Killer floored it.is they hurtled past the cargo hangars and towards a growing pillar of smoke.

A fire engine was there before them, its great noozle pouring foam over the small sports plane I hat lay crumpled and torn in the grass beside the runway. Killer braked to a stop by the Fire Chief who was directing the operation.

“Anything that I can do?” Sam said.

“We’ll know in a moment. I don’t want to go near that plane while there is a chance of her blowing. Give it a few seconds more. The damned thing came in and hit some debris on the runway. You see what happened. I think it’s safe now, but no guarantees…”

“I’ll go,” Sam said, jumping down. “Nita, stay here until I give you a shout.”

Then he was running towards the wreck. It was 111 ted on its side, one wing sticking straight up like a hand beckoning for help. The firemen had the door open and were reaching inside when he came up.

“Don’t touch them!” he called out, pushing the men aside.

There were two people in the plane. The pilot and an elderly man. The passenger had to be dead; his head had impacted the control panel with destructive results. The pilot was unconscious but appeared to be still breathing. Sam made a quick check for broken bones or possible spinal injuries, then called for the stretcher. Killer helped ease the man onto it and they quickly carried it back to the ambulance. The police captain was talking on his radiophone when they came up.

“Got another report of a possible plane down. Can you do anything?”

“In a moment,” Sam said. Nita was bent over the patient. Then she straightened slowly and shook her head.

“He’s dead,” she said. “Has been for some time.”

“I thought he was breathing…” Sam didn’t finish the sentence. She was telling the truth. “All right, captain, we’ll go take a look. Where is it?”

“Out there past the damned spaceship. There was a report from the tower that a company jet was last seen on the taxiway when that thing came down. They haven’t been able to check on it, there was too much to do here. Could you take a look, it would be around the other side somewhere. All air traffic has been diverted, you can cut across the field.”

“Of course, we’ll go now, did you hear that, Dominguez?”

“We’re rolling, Doc — better hold on,” Killer shouted, gunning the heavy ambulance into a leaf like a jackrabbit. Sam knew what was coming and i aught Nita around the waist before she fell. Killer threw the switch and the rear door closed while they raced ahead. “That thing is really a monster,” he said.